Money Alone Can't Buy Security

August 15, 1986|The Morning Call

"We're just going to move in there, guns blazing."

- President Reagan, February 1981.

In the 5 1/2 years since he made that statement, both Mr. Reagan and the American people have learned that blazing guns are ineffective weapons against terrorists who are holding Americans hostages - if, indeed, president and public really ever believed that proposition. Moreover, in the same period of time it has become increasingly evident that appropriating millions of dollars to increase the security of our diplomatic posts and to protect our foreign service personnel abroad cannot alone guarantee security.

After the release of the American hostages by Iran, Congress opened a spigot from which flowed annually almost as many dollars as the State Department requested to protect Americans and American property abroad. The first deluge from that spigot came in 1981 - a $200-million five-year comprehensive anti-terrorist program to keep Americans safe the world over. Notwithstanding such financial commitment, our embassy in Beirut was attacked twice, our embassy in Kuwait once and our Marine compound at Beirut Airport devastated, with loss of more than 300 lives - mostly American. These latter attacks were carried out by terrorists who crashed cars and a truck filled with explosives into the buildings.

In 1984, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved $356 million for additional security at our embassies and U.S. Information Agency posts. A $10- million rider was tacked on the bill for rewards to elicit information about terrorists. A year later, a report by the State Department's Office of the Inspector General gave poor marks for the manner in which $500 million had been spent to upgrade security for our missions and personnel abroad.

This week, the House approved and sent to the White House a bill that will give the State Department $1.1 billion to increase security at our overseas diplomatic posts. This, it is said, can be accomplished by building new embassies and rebuilding existing facilities with an eye to frustrate terrorist attacks. However, even as the echo of the voice vote was heard in the chamber, a congressional report was released that was critical of how appropriations for the same purpose were and are being spent.

It is abundantly clear that billions of dollars alone will not make our embassies abroad, and the Americans and nationals who serve in them, safe from terrorists. Somehow, in all the financial planning, an element of common sense has been overlooked. That, as well as human fraility. It does not cost a million dollars to take certain measures to prevent or to minimize the effects of a terrorist attack.

"You can take a 50-gallon drum, fill it with sand and plop it in the driveway (of an embassy)," said Dennis Hays, president of the Foreign Service Association, a group which represents American diplomats abroad. "That doesn't take a lot of expertise." No, it doesn't. And although it is not aesthetically pleasing, it does provide a buffer between a suicidal car-bomber and his target until something permanent can be erected. That's the kind of planning that was lacking by our people charged with the security of American personnel and property in Beirut and in Kuwait - even after terrorists threatened to do what they eventually did but before they did it. No amount of money appropriated by Congress can guarantee that we'll get top value for our top dollar spent on brick and mortar. But, somehow, the people who recruit, train and assign our security and military personnel to oversee our foreign outposts had better spend more time considering the human factor in the selection process than in worrying just about accommodations, otherwise there won't be any accommodations to worry about.